GEECS blog

Interlink AGM Mobile Stories

2011-11-30T11:49:00.001-08:00

Send bulk SMS with CardBoardFish SMS Solutions

2011-01-11T03:27:00.001-08:00

Hello, & welcome to the new look GEECS blog

We've tweaked the design & re-arranged a few things so it should be easier for you to navigate. You'll find 3 main sections; our news & updates, our resources and a space to keep & share all the stories that are made during our workshops.

Take a look at the latest items below or jump to our site map to get an overview of the site's structure.

Digital Inclusion Conference 2010

2010-12-07T01:36:00.000-08:00

This post is for our workshop at the Digital Inclusion Conference 2010

There was quite a bit of randomness in our story event generator, but these SMS messages create the most wonderful images. At least in my mind!

Digital Photography Course PART 4

2010-12-01T15:39:00.000-08:00

Here's the PDF our Digital Photography course Part 4 - Social Photography: Tagging Photos & Digital Graffiti.

If you want to download it click the link below which will take you to scribd.com and download to your computer from there.

Digital Photography Course PART4

Social Media Workshop for TPAS Cymru Conference

2010-11-22T13:03:00.000-08:00

GEECS jointly delivered a Social Media workshop at the TPAS Cymru (Tenant Participation Advisory Service) conference on Friday with Novas Scarman, one of our Communities 2.0 project partners.

The session focused on the benfits of social media, and used Tumblr - a powerful & simple personal publishing platform - as an example of the scope and potential of using social media. To support the workshop we created this blog http://tpascymru.tumblr.com/ which demonstrates posts of all kinds, incorporates an RSS feed which posts to the blog automatically, and includes information on using Tumblr & its benefits. We posted to the blog during the session to demonstrate the speed, simplicity & effectiveness of the platform.

It was an enjoyable session to deliver - many of the participants weren't well versed in the potential of social media, but were enthused by the session and left intending to make better use of the tools that are freely available to them.

Digital Photography Course PART 3

2010-11-22T12:58:00.000-08:00

Here's the PDF our Digital Photography course Part 3 - Social Photography, Introducing Flickr, Creating a Flickr account & Flickr Groups.

If you want to download it click the link below which will take you to scribd.com and download to your computer from there.

Digital Photography Course PART3 PPT

20 Things I Learned About Browsers & the Web

2010-11-18T11:52:00.000-08:00

I just came across this site, 20 Things I Learned about Browsers & the Web and thought I should share it here. Beautifully designed and clearly written, it's a fantastic 'everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask' guide to the web.

The guide has been produced by Google Chrome, and is an authoritative and comprehensive manual on how the web works, and from a digital inclusion perspective I think it will prove to be a hugely valuable resource for Communities 2.0 beneficiaries.

I do recommend you at least take a look - it's so well designed you'll be reading and learning before you know!

Nantyglo Digital Stories

2010-11-16T06:23:00.001-08:00

Mog and I have been working with a small group in Nantyglo for the last few weeks training them to create their own digital stories.

It was a fun group to work with, and so interesting to learn such a lot about the local area and its past. The work produced by the group was fab - we've added two very different examples for you to watch below.

Lost in Nantyglo from Angharad Dalton on Vimeo.

My Husband and Best Friend from Angharad Dalton on Vimeo.

Digital Photography Course PART 2

2010-11-16T00:40:00.000-08:00

Here's the PDF our Digital Photography course Part 2 - Photo editing, corrections and fun stuff with GIMP

If you want to download it click the link below which will take you to scribd.com and download to your computer from there.

Digital Photography Course PART2

Digital Photography Course PT1

2010-11-16T00:37:00.000-08:00

Here's the PDF our Digital Photography course Part 1 - Introduction to cameras and composition.

If you want to download it click the link below which will take you to scribd.com and download to your computer from there.

Digital Photography Course Pt1 PDF

Tumbled Tales

2010-11-03T07:01:00.000-07:00

GEECS have recently developed a new storytelling blog & blogging workshop for community groups. Building on the social media workshop that we already offer, we can now deliver tailored & creative sessions around blogging using the Tumblr platform. A very popular and extremely easy-to-use personal publishing tool, Tumblr, is one of the simplest ways to publish online.

The new story blog, Tumbled Tales (http://tumbledtales.tumblr.com), is a space for its authors, Angharad & Mog, to capture/showcase the ‘stories’ we see all around us which intrigue, enthral, inspire, touch and make us laugh. Our stories will be posted in any media format – showcasing digital stories in the broadest possible sense of the term.

We hope that Tumbled Tales will not only help generate interest in storytelling generally, but also foster a better understanding of the variety of digital storytelling-based training options that are available to community groups from GEECS, for free. We’d welcome your stories too - please feel free to submit your own via the submit section on the Tumblog.

Apart from developing this new workshop, Mog and I have been mulling over a number of ideas for new workshops recently, and we'd love to hear your opinion on them...

Having worked on the Our Bridgend project (see here for our post) we're very keen to use similar mapping technology in our storytelling workshops. We're currently looking into developing our own online GEECS map which will allow workshop participants to upload content, or stories, of all sorts to a specific place on the map...Watch this space!

We're also considering developing a workshop around E-readers / I-books. I-books are an interesting emerging field that uses new technology to deliver traditional & familiar content, often at a fraction of the cost of a printed book, and sometimes for free. Users can browse an unlimited library of publications and download them directly to their 'reader'. Given that we're from a Storytelling centre of excellence, I thought it would be remiss to not cover one of the most exciting developments in reading & story disemination in our suite of workshops!

I'd like to develop a workshop that looks at two or more sides of any given story, since there is always more than one side! We have also discussed a Picture-Poem workshop, and seperately I recently discovered www.nevver.com, all of which has got me thinking about associative storytelling techniques and ways to run workshops that generate associative content... Do let us know what you think.

Ecodysgu

2010-10-19T02:16:00.000-07:00

Last week Mog and I delivered a 2 day Digital Storytelling session to a very interesting and wonderfully hospitable organisation in Bridgend called Ecodysgu.

Ecodysgu are an environmental education centre offering workshops in creative expression. A not for profit community, Ecodysgu operates as an holistic education centre. Set in 42 acres of beautiful countryside it delivers a model of education called ‘Learning to Heal – Healing to Learn’.

The group (which included our first canine beneficiary in the form of a dog named Mouse) accessed our training as part of a wider package of support from the Communities 2.0 project. The staff receiving the training were enthused by the workshop and are planning to train their own service users to create their own stories. The team also intend to work with the local community to capture stories about the historic site which has many dilapidated buildings, such as an old Pit Pony Hospital.

The staff and volunteers at Ecodysgu created some brilliant stories, a few of which are available to watch below, plus more over on the STORIES page

THE DANCE OF LIFE from chris mog on Vimeo.

The Nuthouse from chris mog on Vimeo.

Ysbyti Tri Chwm

2010-10-19T01:45:00.000-07:00

Mog and I delivered a hugely enjoyable 2-day Digital Storytelling session to staff at Ysbyty Tri Chwm recently. The staff involved aim to use DS in their work, cascading DS as a health tool amongst colleagues and patients. We were rewarded for our training with plenty of tea and cake, and were presented with this HUGE tub of Celebrations at the end! Thanks guys :)

We loved the stories that were produced by all the participants, which were of a very high standard - moving, funny, and jam-packed with social history. But what was particularly striking for Mog and I was the fact that two of the stories that were created here really represented the extremes of possibilities for stories, bookending the spectrum of emotions that often spill out of participants during this work. Symbolically these were the first and last stories we watched with this group. You can get a clearer picture of what I mean by watching the two stories below. One is funny yet touching, the other is honest and warming. You can watch more stories form this workshop over on the STORIES page.

dad and the burglar from chris mog on Vimeo.

Auburn Angel from chris mog on Vimeo.

Our Bridgend...continued

2010-09-27T05:19:00.000-07:00

Continuing from Angharad's post regarding the ourbridgend.com site, we were in Bridgend town centre on Saturday at the just@sk project running a workshop aimed at producing content for the site - specifically some digital stories.

The map over on our bridgend.com has been developed by NativeHQ and the National Theatre of Wales who have been keen to extend the reach and remit of community theatre by investing time and energy into a social media strategy that seems to be paying dividends at the moment.

For us at GEECS, the potential of the map presents us with a great opportunity to continue to develop this resource as a tool for digital inclusion workshops: the concept from the user point of view is so simple - pick a place and add your content, simple as that.

However, from a DI angle, there is so much potential not only to display user generated content that is not necessarily driven by workshop attendance but also to map activity at a national level.

The map has the potential for us to examine digital activity plus a chance to develop innovative and dynamic cross-project and inter-organisational data that can deliver sustainable DI activity based on communities of place.

Just a quick look at the map can stir stories based on place e.g. my first kiss or even as shown on the map "this is where i lost my gerbil down a drain".

This tool offers a powerful storytelling "jumping off" point, it can help participants to develop media rich content and post it quickly, plus perhaps most importantly, it promotes ownership and therefore a level of self-promotion and sustainability through a variety of social media platforms.

After the workshop on Saturday it is becoming apparent that the people involved see the relevance of this tool and posts are now appearing as far north as Caernarfon and Holyhead. I think it is this sense of relevance that creates a great opportunity to promote DI activity, after all, we all like to sit down and reminisce about the places we grew up, the places we went, the places that hold emotion and hold those stories of experience that prove themselves to be so content rich; not to mention the places of gossip of course!

Hopefully this map will be available for our use and development soon.

As an extra I'd just like to extend our thanks for inspiration, help and vision to Tom, Guy, NTW and of course everyone who came on the weekend.

Meantime, if you're in Bridgend any time soon why not go along and see NTW's production Love Steals us from Loneliness running from October 7-16 in Hobos, Bridgend and then post your thoughts over on ourbridgend.com.

Meantime, check out some of the content from the weekend...(there's a story from me too, but you'll have to scroll north to Maesteg!)

Llanelli Communities First

2010-09-23T07:39:00.000-07:00

Team GEECS have been busy working with Llanelli Communities First this week.

We've spent an enjoyable 2 days delivering a Digital Storytelling training session to C1st staff taking an 'all you need to know' approach to Digital Storytelling covering everything from history & background, theory, capturing and editing audio and photos to finally putting it all together. This training will now be rolled out with support from GEECS to community members across the 5 Communities First wards in the area.

They aim is to capture the human side of the work and achievements of Communities First through stories made by the wider community. These will be featured at a community event in Llanelli on November the 4th.

The training was well-received, and Mog and I are very proud of the stories that theSTORIES page...

Asten would fall off her chair... from chris mog on Vimeo.

Then And Now from chris mog on Vimeo.

All you need to know about Mobile Phones - Aberfan

2010-09-15T03:47:00.000-07:00

This post is for todays workshop with Aberfan and Merthyr Vale Darby and Joan Club.

We're setting up a SMS wall and hoping the participants will text in their thoughts around new tech....

Full post follows...

Here's the results of the text wall that we set up for the Mobile Phone workshop at Abervan & Merthyr Vale Darby & Joan Club.

The Darby and Joan club is a well-attended group. A good number of its members owned mobiles with varying degrees of familiarity with their handsets. Mog and I enjoyed this session a great deal - it's always rewarding to be able to answer questions, demonstrate new tricks and show people how to do things they're stuck on. However one member stumped the GEECS - we couldn't work out how to delete sent text messages from a Sagem handset! (We have since discovered that there isn't a way to do it - phew!)

Nina the group leader has invited us back to do some further sessions with the group, and one lady in particular had a huge amount of interest in our work as she had worked with the BBC's Capture Wales project previously and made her own Digital Story.

We'd also like to wish Betty a happy birthday, and say thanks ever so much for the birthday cake! We like cake :)

Our Bridgend

2010-09-14T07:16:00.001-07:00

There's a fantastic interactive map project running in Bridgend at the moment that we thought we'd share with you. Our Bridgend was developed as part of National Theatre Wales' work around their upcoming Bridgend production 'Love Steals Us From Loneliness' the map has been developed to capture people's experiences of Bridgend, set around the themes of Love, Hate, Dark, Light, Us & Them.

GEECS has been invited to run community workshops within Bridgend county where the map will be showcased. Text, pictures and films can be added to the map by anyone - please feel free to add your own stories if you have any! It is hoped that map will soon be filled with interesting stories about life in Bridgend.

Love Steals us from Loneliness runs from October 7-16 in Hobos, Bridgend.

Mobile Phone Session Merthyr 14th September

2010-09-13T11:13:00.000-07:00

This post is for our upcoming session with St. Tydfils Court Sheltered Housing in Merthyr. A full post to follow...

(cont..) So here's the SMS wall we made with the help of a few of the residents up at ST. Tydfils Court:

What was really interesting about this session was the level of digital inclusion already apparent among the guys here. Margaret was using a 2nd generation mobile phone plus was using facebook on her personal laptop to keep up to date with her family.

Also present was Rich who brought along his laptop and demonstrated a real understanding of computers.

Again, what we saw here were some people with a genuine interest in technology because they saw it as being relevant to them; they wanted to "tinker" (one of my favourite words) and find out how they can use the tech around them for their benefit.

We're looking forward to going back in October to do some digital storytelling with the guys - especially to hear Margaret's story, who when we talked about the idea yesterday kept us enthralled with her stories of what she described as "nothing" and "there's nothing interesting about me". Just goes to show that we all have a story to tell, even if the story is of nothing!

The Minister's Visit

2010-09-13T08:20:00.001-07:00

GEECS delivered a special workshop on animation in Llandysul for the Pont Tyweli Silver Surfers last week. It was a fun afternoon, and the group were wonderful to work with.

The workshop itself was rather special for a number of reasons, which variously include:

Minister's visit
The Minister for Social Justice Carl Sargeant visited during the session, providing a great opportunity to showcase the invaluable digital inclusion work that GEECS and the Communities 2.0 project is carrying out.

Animation is go!
This session was the first time that GEECS had delivered this newly developed workshop. I felt that the workshop was a success with the class producing some lovely one sentence story films using newspaper clippings to form the stories - we'll upload some of these for you shortly!

Harri-Solo
This workshop was my first without my compadre Mogs who was on annual leave, though that said Karlis (Communities 2.0) and Chris (CCC) were on hand providing invaluable help with the set-up and support during the session - thanks guys!

Setting
Workshop venues vary so much from job to job, and the venue for this workshop was quite special. The session took place in the newly refurbished Powerhouse Community Centre in Llandysul; the building is a fantastic community facility for arts and lifelong learning projects nestled on the edge of the river Teifi - it was a pleasure to work there and meet the staff.

Animation Workshops are GO..!

2010-08-25T06:32:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple of quick tests myself and Angharad made yesterday afternoon in about 10 minutes each in order to test out on of our new freeware based workshops.

Our new animation based workshop is quick, easy and most importantly a lot of fun. We found that after a quick test we were soon discussing the potential of this software with a little bit of time...

The workshop is based on freeware, namely PIXresizer and MonkeyJam, plus a minimum of kit that basically includes a digital camera, something sturdy to bolt or gaffer tape it to and some stuff to animate. For our examples we used words and pictures that were hanging around the office but as usual, imagination is the key.

I'll post our quick cheatsheet guide to using the software below.

While we're on the subject of animation, there's another free and very fun app called Scratch which as well as being free and offering great animations also introduces the user to world of code using "blocks" of "code" to control the environment. This is well worth checking out and I'm sure we'll find a way to incorporate this software into a workshop too.

Meantime please enjoy the software and if you need us to come and do some animation with you please get in touch. We'd also be very interested in featuring some of your work here too.

harri ani-MPEG-4 from chris mog on Vimeo.

Mogs' animation TEST from chris mog on Vimeo.

Animation Workshop

Wesleyan Chapel mobile phone workshop

2010-08-24T02:55:00.001-07:00

Mog and I delivered a fast and fun mobile phone session to the Wesleyan Chapel Coffee Morning group on 19th August.

The session took place in a beautiful 180 year old church in Nantyglo - check out some of the pictures we took of what has to be one of the most impressive training venues we've ever seen!
The session focused on using SMS or texting as a valuable and vital means of communication, drawing on research that has found the medium to be as important as the 'garden fence' for knowledge exchange and the maintenance of relationships and healthy social interaction. The group used their mobiles to text their thoughts on issues in Nantyglo to our blog - their submissions are here:

We really enjoyed the session and hope that the group will make more use of their phones to keep in touch with friends and family following the workshop.

How the Internet is changing language

2010-08-17T04:34:00.001-07:00

Here's an interesting piece published by the BBC on how the internet is changing language.

Given the significant impact that technology is having on our lives, there's little wonder that it's having an effect on our language. It'll be interesting to see how lasting these influences will be on our language, given the speed at which technology is changing our everyday lives but language is traditionally slow to evolve....

New Workshops

2010-08-13T05:36:00.003-07:00

Mog and I have been busy developing some new workshops this week. We’re very excited about getting out to deliver the new sessions which variously cover animation, social game-playing and adding information to pictures.

The animation workshop is a lovely desk-based session which stimulates digital inclusion and encourages storytelling through simple animation.
T
The gameplaying session mixes traditional physical games such as hide and seek with mobile phone technology to encourage digital inclusion and storytelling through social interactions.

The final workshop that we have developed is a modern twist on the traditional picture postcard; where workshop participants will learn how to add information to pictures in order to tell a more holistic story about the chosen image.

All our new workshops are flexible in length and can be tailored to the time available to work with the community group receiving the training.

We will be running the animation workshop for the first time on September the 7th so we will be sure to write up how it went here on our blog!

Further information on the diverse range of workshops are available here: http://geecs.50webs.com/

All our work aims to encourage the development of community-based digital or IT skills in a fun and creative manner.

Please feel free to contact either Mog or myself via the blog if you are part of a community group that feels our work could benefit you.

Infographic: The 2010 Social Networking Map | Digital Buzz Blog

2010-08-13T04:44:00.001-07:00

via digitalbuzzblog.com

I remember seeing the 2009 version of this and it's interesting to see how things are changing. A great resource for our Social Media workshop I reckon.

Introducing...

2010-08-05T03:14:00.000-07:00

Hi,

I thought I'd better write a quick post to introduce myself as the project's new Outreach Worker.

I'm really pleased to be working on the Digital Storytelling project, and am excited about the work that Mogs and I will be undertaking over the next 18 months or so to help communities benefit from the diversity of technology that is available to us these days. It's a great role for me as I am a techno-enthusiast, so as well as helping to share my enthusiasm and burgeoning IT know-how with others, I'll get to develop new skills at the same time.

Over the past few days I've been working closely with Mogs learning the ropes - I hope it's not been too painful a process for him! As part of my 'learning by doing' regime I have made my first ever digital story. Had I realised it would be offered here for the world to see I might have chosen to focus a little less on dogs...!

I've also spent some time absorbing the project's background and structure and am looking forward to meeting the other field workers and project officers to further develop my understanding here. Now that I'm beginning to get up to speed with the way the project has been working, I'm keen to get out and about and run some training sessions. I'm also starting to form some ideas around how we can further develop the variety of training and services that we offer... Watch this space!

(image courtesy of Mei Lewis)

Hanes Harri...

2010-08-04T08:46:00.000-07:00

Angharads story...

Hanes Harri from Angharad Dalton on Vimeo.

The Cardiff Story - digital story screenings

2010-08-04T08:22:00.001-07:00

On the 28th July we were invited to a screening of some of the stories from the new Cardiff Story Museum opening in the Hayes in Cardiff in the Autumn. It's always great to go to a screening in a proper cinema and the Atrium provided a great setting.

There were lots of people there, many of whom had come along to see their own stories on the big screen.

The Cardiff Story is a living museum that explores people's relationships with the capital and so the ever hard working Mari has been all over collecting stories which are in turn funny, passionate, revealing and emotional.

GEECS have been involved in the project from the outset and Professor Fyfe's passion for the project was obvious through his introductory speech.

On a personal note, there was a story that really hit a chord with me and revolved around a man who worked on the last day of the last pit to be closed in the Rhondda. The story had a great deal of personal power in it's reflective tone which I'm sure could be echoed by any number of communities in Wales; the loss of industry and the subsequent social and economic implications were something that was happening around me as I was growing up and much more than a day off school because there was no coal to heat the boiler...

The Cardiff Story is opening in the Autumn and will provide facilities for visitors to search and link to the past as well as provide opportunities to watch and create their own stories that can be added to the collection - all in all a great resource and a fantastic way of utilising digital storytelling and personal narrative as a means to help people engage with and understand their history and heritage

Posted via email from chrismog's posterous

Engaging talks in Aberystwyth « RunCoCo

2010-08-04T07:04:00.001-07:00

On the 27th July, we were invited to talk at the RunCoco and Culturenet Cymru's Community Collections workshop day at the National Library of Wales.

There's a much more comprehensive post than I could manage on the link back from this post, but I do have to say that it was a really enjoyable day and great to see some of the work that's going on both here in Wales and further afield.

Some of the highlights for me included listening to the many projects that are going on aimed specifically at capturing personal memories and digitally archiving objects that have some of the most amazing stories to tell - like the series of photographs of a family inside a wallet that had been pierced with a single bullet during WW1.

There was also the chance for us geeky types to talk to Brian Teeman - I would definitely look him up...

All in all I had a great time and I would like to offer our thanks to Alun and Paul for inviting us along.

There is a recording of the presentation I gave somewhere which I'll post here along with the presentation I gave.

Meantime check the links back to the RunCoco site and enjoy some of the work that's going on.

Posted via email from chrismog's posterous

In with the new...

2010-08-03T07:15:00.001-07:00

We're very pleased at GEECS to welcome Angharad as the new outreach worker for the Communities 2.0 project.

Angharad started just Monday but is already hard at work producing her introductory digital story. We'll post it here on the front page as soon as it's ready.

We've already had a number of discussions about how we can take the project forward in terms of new and creative means of offering digital inclusion activities with a twist - pervasive gaming and it's application within social media is just one of an exciting range of workshops we'll be developing and offering over the coming weeks.

We've also been talking about how we can include geotagging and related technologies with a storytelling twist - always trying to make it relevant to the people that we're working with.

So hopefully you'll all be able to meet Angharad very soon and, let's be honest, it's a great change from my strange furry face!

In other news you can now find our calendar over on the resources page (HERE) where Angharad has already endured the agony of being turned into a "Wally"....

We hope the inclusion of our calendar will help everyone to easily see where we are, and as we've said, if we can do it we will - especially if it's just a quick hour taster session.

Posted via email from chrismog's posterous

Digital Storytelling with Mental Health Rhondda Group

2010-08-02T05:38:00.000-07:00

After our recent successful train the trainer workshops up in Treharris we were very happy to learn that not only had some of the participants been running their own DS workshops but also we were invited to help facilitate a 2 day session last Thursday and Friday.

It's always great to be out and about, especially when the group are such a great laugh. What I was really impressed with was the organisers of the event, Interlink in Rhydfelin, have been so keen to take DS forward as part of their work within the mental health support field, recognising it's potential in terms of allowing service users a voice as well as encourage them to tell their own story.

I think this is best demonstrated in the story "The road to Treharris" which is a call to all their service users to get involved with DS and other digital inclusion activities.

You can see all the stories over on the stories page.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all involved, especially the guys at Interlink and Gofal for making this possible and really taking on the mantle of running digital storytelling workshops in the community.

DS5 at Aberystwyth June 2010

2010-07-20T08:10:00.001-07:00

Indeed this was a month ago - so much for my on the spot social reporting eh?

Anyway, there was a post I did which was part of the breakout session we ran at DS5 where I generated a random scenario for people to write an SMS story about and then send them to the blog (thanks to Frankenstory for the inspiration). The results are on the right.

The festival itself was great and agin, now in it's 5th year, DS cymru continues to inspire. Here's some links to reports and pictures of the day:

The DS Cymru Ning network

Gareth Morlais' blog is a great DS resource in itself!

DigiStories are always doing great stuff, there's plenty of resources here, but I must personally thank Barrie for his kind words...

A great day was had by all and probably the highlight of the day for many was listening to Joe Lambert's keynote:

via vimeo.com

Posted via email from chrismog's posterous

New Workshops pt2

2010-07-20T07:34:00.001-07:00

As part of our developing resources, I've been particularly interested of late in how we can utilise social media as a multi platform community engagement strategy that can allow community groups to become their own social reporters, activists, campaigners and new tech developers.

So I put together this workshop aimed at engaging groups using social media as a means of cascading training around digital photography, stortelling, film making etc. and encourage them to take ownership of their on and offline presence in a way that is relevant, sustainable and community led.

The full breakdown of this workshop is over on the resources page too.

SM presentationPDF

I'd also highly recommend taking a look at the social by social book (free pdf download) which formed a basis and inspiration for this workshop - thanks to them!

Also another inspiration in terms of trying to change the way in which we work is here, courtesy of DK and the original ReWork stuff from 37signals. A great resource that's been really inspiring.

null

Posted via email from chrismog's posterous

New Workshops pt1

2010-07-20T07:16:00.001-07:00

Here's the PDF of one of our new workshops that aims to get people thinking about the potential of new technologies. There's a new and improved recipe card over on our resources page.

Get a TastePDF

Posted via email from chrismog's posterous

Blog on...

2010-07-20T07:04:00.001-07:00

I've just been looking over a lot of the social media stuff I've been working on for the last few weeks and suddenly realised that I've been going against my own advice - the blog has indeed been quiet, eerily so for the last few weeks!

So, in an effort to put things right I've shifted my blogging activity over to posterous.com which should enable us to post quickly and efficiently via web mail, mobile phone and utilising their very cool bookmarking button. I reccomend checking it out.

Posterous is free (for the time being) and enables instant publishing to a variety of platforms including facebook, twitter etc as well as the blog over on blogger. I really like this idea of easy insatant publishing - very much the "one button" approach I've been looking for.

So what's been happening?

Well, quite a lot:

Our train the trainer digital storytelling sessions have been quite a success with around 25 people trained up and ready to go in digital storytelling, including some who have already organised some DS sessions. I think that with this approach we are able to build capacity on the ground and reach a wider audience in order to help them get the most out of digital technologies. I'd like to thank everyone involved over the last month or so for their enthusiasm and fabulous stories which you can see over on the storytelling space.

We've also been getting a great response from some of our quick introduction workshops aimed at getting potential participants to get what they want out of DI by using digital photography to help tell their stories about how they feel about technologies.

I'll post some of our presentations and other resources here very soon.

Finally, it was indeed a sad day last week when we at GEECS said au-revoir to Leanne Taylor who's off to Penarth to become a tailor (see what I did there?).

Leanne has been a great asset to the project during the last 8 months or so and brought a cheery enthusiasm and creative approach to all of our work. Plus of course she managed to put up with me for all that time.

I'm sure I echo the feeling of the stortelling centre and the wider partnership as well as all the community groups we've worked with over the months in wishing Leanne all the best with her new venture and we look forward to hearing the stories very soon. Thanks butt!!

On a related note we do have a new member of satff starting in August so I'm very much looking forward to working with Angharad and continuing to develop the creative and happy approach that Leanne has left behind.

Posted via email from chrismog's posterous

Shift Happened — digistories

2010-07-07T08:46:00.001-07:00

via digistories.co.uk

A great video posted over on the digistories site explaining the thinking behind the creative commons approach of licensing work. It's something we're very keen on an I hope this vid explains the benfits better than I can!

By the way, you might notice I'm posting this from a site called posterous - a great way to instantly publish content to multiple platforms via email, text or a bookmark in your browser.

Hopefully this will help us post content quicker and keep the blog more up to date.

There might be a few strange posts happening as I try and figure out how we can get the best out of this resource.

Posted via email from chrismog's posterous

Photoshop Elements 8 Tutorial

2010-05-22T02:42:00.000-07:00

Here's the PS Elements tutorial we used for a workshop demonstrating how we can use the concept of storytelling in still images. I made this presentation over on Prizi - a very neat site that allows some free hosting of presentattions that can then be embedded and shared. Very nice tool.

I'll post this tut over on the tools page too.

10 Word Stories with Photoshop Elements 8 on Prezi

DS5 - Digital Storytelling Festival 16th June Aberystwyth

2010-05-19T06:29:00.000-07:00

It's that time again...it comes round so quick!!!!

This years' 5th annual DS event is packed with great workshops and a chance to meet practitioners from all over the world (and we'll be there too!!!)

"Whether you work in education, the community or as an artist, this is your opportunity to share experiences, explore new creative ideas, see the latest technological developments, look at examples of best practise in the UK and worldwide and celebrate the growing significance of digital storytelling.

DS5 presents a jam packed day of inspirational speakers and practical sessions on every topic you can think of within the field of digital storytelling and some you hadn’t considered! All this plus a wide range of trade stands from the main funding organisations, community development schemes and many more and a unique opportunity to network with the digital storytelling community in Wales, the UK and beyond."

Tickets are now on sale: http://www.dscymru.org.uk/

Introduction to Photoshop - Adult Learners' Week

2010-05-18T01:27:00.000-07:00

Adult learners' week kicked off for us yesterday in Evanstown Community Centre.

As part of the weekly events that are happening around Wales, we were asked to deliver an introduction session to the software Photoshop Elements. At a beginner stage, with all photo-editing software (be it Photoshop, Elements or the great freeware option GIMP), the important thing to get your head around is an organised work flow and the use of layers within a working project.

As we love our stories here in GEECS, I thought it was only appropriate to incorporate this into the session. So the idea I had was to do ‘Ten Word Stories’. Each participant was given a word that was randomly generated from our custom built generator. With this word in mind, they had a few minutes to take a photo that somehow illustrated the word and its meaning.

From their image, each person was then asked to create a relating story in no more than ten words. This was all brought together in Photoshop Elements, learning the basic functions of the workspace and tools and we got some great results...

An online resource to do your own 'Ten Word Story' using Photoshop Elements will shortly be added to our website, and this will be able to be accessed and downloaded from the tools and resources area

Easy content generation...

2010-05-12T09:38:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know that title is a bit off - seeing as it's now May and I'm posting about April...just give us a break as we try and catch up with a few posts!!!!

Anyway, back in April we attended the Communities 2.0 induction over in Swansea. It was a great couple of days that gave the whole team a chance to meet each other face to face and was wonderfully organised with lots of games (and cakes) by Josh from PAVS.

A few days earlier, Cath from the Wales Co-op (you knew I was gonna use that pic!!!) had suggested that we look at the brand values of the project by utilising one of our workshop approaches based around digital photography.

So, each group got 2 of the brand values and took a series of pictures based around that word and produced the following results, which just go to demonstrate how a quick and fun workshop can generate content for your site/blog as well as provide intersting and creative discussions around issues and ideas.

So, the next step for me was thinking, well why not put these fun ideas together into a little vid, so that's what I did:

Marketing Pix from chris mog on Vimeo.

The music is right for what I was thinking in putting this together : "Express yourself...do it good..." I think we should always keep this in mind and make things fun and interesting, but also quick, accesible and with a view to generating content easily.

And maybe we need to be "Livin in correctional facilities" if only in terms of correcting the way we think about and engage with technology in order to get the most out of it. The adoption of creative means to produce creative product and content informs all the work we do and I feel that this "organic" approach always leads to new ideas and new thought.

Cardigan 50+ Forum Mobile Phone Workshop

2010-04-26T03:37:00.000-07:00

This post is designed in preparation for our visit to the Cardigan 50+ Forum on 27th April. Hopefully you should be able to see some of the SMS generated stories on the widget below...

UPDATE: The workshop was a great success and we've now closed the SMS service available from cardboard fish, but here's a sample of the final look of the SMS message board:

So, what we did was generate a few random words from one of our generators (available for you on our downloads page) and the participants picked up on the 2 words technology and family, with the resulting sms stories appearing live on the blog as they were text in.

One of the great things to come out of this day is the way in which this group viewed and interacted with technology; a great quote form the day - "I bet 100 years ago there were a group just like us saying that electricity was never going to catch on..."

There was definitely some good learning coming out of this for us, especially regarding how we deliver and adapt the workshop for the future.

We noticed a great difference in how and why new technologies were being utilised by the group and how much accessibility and relevance play a large part in the adoption of digital tools.

One participant took me to one side and said:

"Look, I don't want to appear as a geek in front of everyone else, but although I can sync my windows mobile device to my outlook, I can't get the pictures onto my laptop..."

I think that statement really sums up the day for me!

The participant then went on to tell me how her husband uses an iTouch to get online as he has suffered a stroke. This kind of experience for us really underlines the importance and relevance of accessible tools for all - especially when considering the wider community, and the tools and approaches we adopt should always reflect that diversity and need.

I think finally, I'd like to thank all the people who participated in this fun workshop - and to the gentleman who made a video on his phone and then wanted to directly SMS that to the blog, I send my apologies...but we're working on it!!!!

I love the fact that the Cardigan 50+ forum has got us thinking about utilising more interactive ways of using the blog...now I'm just off to learn some php...

Training for trainers, Ebbw Vale

2010-04-12T07:13:00.001-07:00

EVAD - Eisteddfod Years Project, March 2010

We ran a two day training for trainers workshop on story collection and Digital Storytelling with staff and volunteers on EVAD's Eisteddfod Years Project. This project will collect and compare stories of the 1958 Eisteddfod and the 2010 Eisteddfod in Ebbw Vale as well as comparisons of the area and town in the two years. The particiapants on the this project will be working with various groups and members of the community to collect material and produce a DVD which will be distributed to the community prior to the 2010 Eisteddfod in August. This project will be by nature intergenerational. As part of the training for trainers workshop participants made their own short personal digital stories to apply what they had learned in the workshop. One of them is available here.

Untitled from geecs storytelling on Vimeo.

Briton Ferry Health and Well Being Group Mobile Phone session

2010-04-12T04:17:00.000-07:00

The taster session in texting on mobile phones in Brtion Ferry was a great success.

Not only did the Briton Ferry Health and Well Being Group witness the mobile phone being used as a spirit-level, a musical instrument and a lightsaber amongst other things, all participants texted us a short story (maximum of 10 words) relating to a randomly generated word.

Below are some of the stories that came out of the event...

TECHNOLOGY:

1. This workshop should allay my fears about modern technology

2. I know nothing at all about it so help me

FEAR:

1. one of our worst fears is losing our personal identity

FAMILY:

1. We have very little family to speak of poor us

COMMUNITY:

1. The community in briton ferry is very good, and strong

MEMORY:

1. We dont have a memory, thats the problem

Texting can be a great tool to use between a community. Mobile phones can be used instead of a quick gossip over the garden fence. Why not send a text to spread the word of any news or events in the community? It's a great, quick way to give and receive a snap-shot of information, and to keep in touch.

Freeware List April 2010

2010-04-06T06:19:00.000-07:00

I've been threatening this for a while now but I reckon it's about time to list the freeware options we've been experimenting with in the workshops and where you can get your hands on them.

Firstly, I think it's worth pointing out that we're concentrating on Windows based software as it seems more prevalent than Mac or Linux in the community. Although having said that if you do have a Mac I'd recommend a combination of iPhoto, Audacity and iDVD which are all pre-installed with your Mac OS.

So, lets start with Audio:

Audacity: Latest releases available at this site.
(Also get LameLib for MP3 export from Audacity (if you need some extensibility))

We all know and love audacity! A very intuitive user friendly interface that allows easy audio editing. It's just like using a word processor, but on audio.

Wavosaur: quality audio editor with ASIO and VST plug-in support. Similar to Audacity and well worth a look, especially if you want to work with VST effects; although audacity has VST support Wavosaur seems more stable, but that's just me...

VIDEO EDITING:

Movie Maker 2.6 Nooooo, I hear you cry! But wait, for the purposes of producing a working digital story that's ready for DVD export, it's difficult to find a better free and reliable product. I say reliable, but make sure to save your work constantly as it's not a matter of if MM is gonna crash but when it's gonna crash!

We know it's a little clunky and doesn't often lend itself to creative arrangement, but considering we're working from scratch it does the job nicely. Nearly all the films on our Stories section were produced using MM.

For our purpose we were quite desperate to get the pan and zoom working too and to this end we found a little package of effects called Dan's Pan and Zoom. Download and unzip the package and then put the 2 files danpan.xml and danpan.dll in Program FilesMovie Maker 2.6SharedAddOnTFX (you'll need admin priveleges for this. Also note that your Movie Maker folder may be called "Movie Maker 2.6"). Reboot MM and now you've got the pan files listed in the fx. I know it's not fully customisable but it does the job. Also be aware of issues with x-fades using these fx.

Also, be aware that you should have MM already installed on XP so just add the danpan files. If you're on Vista, there are pan and zoom fx bundled with the pre-installed version. You should only need to download MM 2.6 for Windows 7 as it's no longer pre-installed, also be aware of the new MM live! which doesn't have the flexibility we deemed necessary for DS: go for MM2.6.

PhotoStage Currently seems to stable on XP and Vista but not reliable on Win7. Fix may be coming soon! We're keeping an eye on this one as it's great for DS with a GUI very much like Photoshop elements slideshow producer. If it becomes stable on Win7, I think we'll be recommending this.

PHOTOSTORY3 This is a nice bit of software, again with the intuitive GUI I mentioned above, but no support for 48K audio, so a compromise on quality. Having said that, if you're using lower spec audio or happy with mp3, then I'd recommend it.

DVD Slideshow GUI: Integrated suite of tools for developing DS. Non-linear approach makes it a bit tricky to use but in development. Waiting for stable release at V 1.0.

PHOTO EDITING

GIMP: free free free. Just great! All the tools you'll need for effective image manipulation and graphics for a range of projects. Recommended!

DVD AUTHORING

DVD Styler Free and intuitive DVD authoring software. There does seem to be a bug thouh, whereby the dialogue says "Burning Failed" despite the disc seeming to work OK. Might be a script error. This software also allows custom menu building too.

Workshops, workshops

2010-03-25T06:35:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy month this month that's seen us working with a variety of different groups and setting up projects for the next couple of months.

Our aim of encouraging sustainability seems to be having an impact on the ground and we're looking forward to revisiting some of the projects in a few months to see how things are developing.

This Monday (March 29th) is the screening of seven films made by members and some staff as part of the Learning through the Outdoors project based in Merthyr.

I'm really excited about this as I've not seen all of the stories myself yet. There seems to be a real enthusiasm within this group to carry the work forward and continue to develop digital storytelling as part of the activities with members of the group facilitating DS workshops.

We've offered to be on hand to support but I think they'll be fine, armed with the DS freeware we've recommended in order to run and develop workshops. We wish them all the best moving forward and look forward to coming back to the Gurnos soon.

Another series of workshops we have been involved with were run in the Tri yn Un area of the Cynon Valley. We got a great story out of this that shows how unexpected and unpredictable these workshops can be. I'm in the process of posting this film here so it should be up within the next week or so.

The participant concerned has also expressed a keen interest in taking the project further and we are aiming to support her in achieving this within the local community. We look forward to revisiting this project again soon.

I'd just like to express our thanks at GEECS to all the participants who have given so much and expressed such interest in trying to make digital storytelling in the community a sustainable activity. We'll do our best to support it and look forward to many more amazing stories form people who are often unaware that they carry these stories within them.

More stories coming soon.

Arduino Workshop Weekend

2010-03-01T03:18:00.000-08:00

I spent the weekend over at Chapter where I was introduced to the world of micro-controllers and prototyping using Arduino which was facilitated by the guys from tinker.it.

Now, although I have a very basic understanding of what I just said, I felt it might be a good idea to post some of my experiences and how they might impact on digital inclusion.

I can't really go in to too much depth regarding the concepts as I don't really get them myself yet!

Anyway, the main point of interest for me was around the world and concepts of Physical Computing. It's all about the way in which we are able to interface with computers. The traditional method of mouse and keyboard control which, from the point of view of the computer, means we as users, are perceived by the machine we wish to control as a giant finger and nothing more.

Of course, us users are much more complex than that and therefore there are a multitude of ways we could interface with a machine that allows data to be captured through a number of interfaces; e.g. gestures, sounds, movement, light, distance etc.

It's at this point the world of Arduino, and more specifically micro-controller programming offers an open source way to "go beyond the finger".

The "prototyping board" pictured above will cost around £20 as forms the basis of how the environment can interface with programs and how programs can interface with the environment. There are two open source programming platforms that allow the dialogue; Arduino (software) controls the board and Processing (Software) controls the computer.

These two platforms talk to each other very effectively and allow input via the Arduino board (gestures, actions, knobs, sensors etc.) to be interpreted and used in programs that can display or use that input to control or produce effects on your desktop.

This process also works in reverse whereby actions on your desktop (key presses, mouse movements etc.) can be translated into actions in the environment (switching on lights, activating motor functions etc.).

That all sounds very promising to me, but inevitably I was very soon out of my depth as the world of coding and electronic engineering appeared on the horizon! I've never really understood electronics and the prospect of building circuits was a bit daunting - let alone the idea of programming chips!

So I struggled on through the weekend by falling back on my vast experience of "not really knowing what I'm doing" and eventually built a circuit that controlled a motor I had liberated from an old toy bubble making machine. I wrote the code and made the circuit which to me was extremely exciting; until the guy sat next to me showed me his "etch-a-sketch" machine he'd built and programmed in a couple of hours.

Anyway, going back to digital inclusion...During this whole weekend I felt very much out of my depth as I have no experience in electronics; so all I wanted to know was the answer to the same question we find popping up all the time doing DI workshops: "How do I NOT break this?".

There was a vast amount of strange language coming at me too, only some of which I was able to understand. I made a motor spin and didn't fry my chip, so now I can move on from there; but to see what everyone else made I was really inspired but somehow at a loss to think about how I might do something similar.

I think in summary there are two points coming out of this for our DI work:

1. There is a massive potential with this kit (and the resources I found both online and in terms of the open source minded participants who agreed to share their designs and code) to encourage workshop participants to interact with new technologies in a more "natural", but much more creative way.

2. An awareness of language and approach that can quickly and easily alienate and lose those who have an absolute zero degree of the concepts around new technologies. It can often be the (relatively speaking) smallest thing that inspires.

Finally...as a result of this I'm looking for thrown away bits of tech like keyboards, remote controls, potentiometers (twisty knobs from hi-fi's etc.) and motors/servos that can be recycled to produce new and creative ways of interfacing with the technologies that are at the tip of our massive fingers!

Digital Technology and Infrastructure in Rural Areas Seminar

2010-02-25T09:05:00.000-08:00

As part of its role within the Communities 2.0 project , the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling is running a series of seminars within the area of Digital Inclusion.

The latest seminar in the series took place at Bangor University on Monday 22nd February 2010, presented by Professor Peter Edwards.

Peter Edwards is a Professor of Computer Science at Aberdeen University and Technical Director of the RCUK Rural Digital Economy Hub.

Digital Technology and Infrastructure in Rural Areas Seminar from chris mog on Vimeo.

Working with the Elements 2

2010-02-25T06:20:00.000-08:00

The stories form our work with Mentro Allan are now online. I'll post them to the Stories page of the site too.

Earth from chris mog on Vimeo.	Air from chris mog on Vimeo.
Water from chris mog on Vimeo.	Fire from chris mog on Vimeo.

Working with the elements

2010-02-23T02:32:00.000-08:00

It was the last week of our element based project with Mentro Allan, Merthyr Tydfil yesterday and the event was celebrated with a mini exhibition.

Digital stories that had been produced were shown and they will be posted up very soon! Until then, take a peek at some of the images that documented the group’s journey of each element Water, Earth, Fire and Air.

(Click on the images to enlarge)

Communities 2.0 Seminar

2010-02-19T06:14:00.000-08:00

Digital Technology and Infrastructure in Rural Areas Seminar

Monday 22nd February 2010

As part of its role within the Communities 2.0 project , the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling is running a series of seminars within the area of Digital Inclusion.

WATCH THE SEMINAR LIVE HERE.

The latest seminar in the series is taking place at Bangor University on Monday 22nd February 2010, presented by Professor Peter Edwards.

Peter Edwards is a Professor of Computer Science at Aberdeen University and Technical Director of the RCUK Rural Digital Economy Hub.

Professor Edwards will speaking on the development of digital technology and infrastructure in rural areas.

This is a free event for all attendees. A networking buffet lunch will be provided at the start of the seminar.

REGISTER NOW

Linking the Chain: Digital Heritage Network for Wales

2010-02-12T15:11:00.000-08:00

Some good news. This afternoon we heard that we have been awarded just over £18,000 by the Arts and Humanities Research Council to run a Digital Heritage Network for Wales, bringing together a cross-disciplinary team of academics and heritage professionals to develop projects around heritage and digital technology. The network, which will run from April until December, will be run by the University's new cross-faculty Centre for Digital Economy and should be able to map onto and complement the work we are doing on Communities 2.0. Onwards and upwards!

Design in the Digital World

2010-02-12T03:30:00.000-08:00

Design in the Digital World Projects from Mike Wilson on Vimeo.

http://www.bespokeproject.org/

http://www.youtotem.org/

Mentro Allan – Outdoor Photography taster day

2010-02-09T06:53:00.000-08:00

A great day was had by all last week when GEECS worked with a group from Mentro Allan to provide a digital photography taster session.

Mentro Allan is a collection of projects in Wales that aims increase the physical activity levels of its target group, making best use of the local natural outdoor environment close to where people live.

On behalf of the Communities 2.0 project, we at GEECS have been working with Mentro Allan in Merthyr Tydfil to help bring digital inclusion into the area. As the work with this group is based around outdoor activity, we wanted to provide a session that could incorporate a walk within in the local area.

We chose to apply the ‘Lucky Dip Photography’ workshop. The idea of this workshop is to provide a fast and fun activity that enables the participants to engage with their surroundings and consider the chosen words in a wider context, challenging both creativity and photographic ability.

The session concluded with a computer based workshop where the group were able to bring the images of the day together into a contact sheet. This showed thumbnails of the photos, along with the images of the words, providing a narrative based documentation of the walk.

The participants left with a printed copy of their contact sheet, a DVD of all the images taken, the free photographic editing software GIMP, and the skills to use and develop this in the future. Take a look at some of the results!

(Click on the images to enlarge or see more over on the STORIES page)

The Workshop Menu is here...

2010-02-06T05:51:00.000-08:00

Over on the RESOURCES pages, I've posted a menu of our latest offering for the Communities 2.0 table.

It's an evolving menu with which we hope to tickle your creative taste buds.

Remember, if you don't see it on the menu we can always prepare to order!

Fairytales really do come true....

2010-02-05T03:11:00.000-08:00

I want to show a story that came from my love of Lomography. Lomography is a spontaneous approach to photography and pushes the boundaries of what we believe the rules of photography to be.

Fairytales really do come true: A tribute to Lomography from Leanne Taylor on Vimeo.

The images are captured by plastic (and so called) ‘toy’ cameras, which produce magical outcomes from any subject matter. The magic comes from the fact that whatever you may plan for the image you wish to take, the camera will produce its own version of this. In this way, you have a world of possibility from the outcomes, and the dream like images have a way lighting your imagination.

Lomographers have 10 golden rules that they adhere to, but the main point is to not think about your images and just keep shooting. I believe that using this ethos and these cameras will encourage and stimulate imaginations and therefore could play an important role in digital story telling. The images may stem from the everyday, but they seem to provoke nostalgia and may even become something of fantasy and fiction.

There are many different Lomo cameras and they all produce their own unique style of images. The photos in my story are taken on a Holga. As part of the Communites 2.0 project, the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling, is planning to incorporate work with Lomo cameras into one of our small workshop sessions. We are also developing ways to apply Lomographic ‘after effects’ to digital photographs in certain photographic editing software. In the GEECS Digital Storytelling Space you can find a free plug-in download (LoMog.atn) to be used as action in Photoshop. Simply download here, install, and apply to your images. There is a choice to run two actions, one will give a ‘hard lomo’ effect and the other will give a ‘soft lomo’ effect. The key is to experiment, each image will be affected in a different way and the effects will be stronger on some images than in others.

We are hoping to develop this into a batch processing tool that will apply different effects randomly to multiple images in one go, therefore echoing the lack of control that happens in film based lomography. We will keep you updated with developments – so watch this space!!

Generators

2010-01-31T05:58:00.000-08:00

Over on the GEECS Digital Storytelling Space, I've posted a couple of generators that could be useful for coming up with instant digital workshop ideas.

The original idea comes form John Davitt's Learning Event Generator, which I've adapted into a Flash based web tool that you can also download and customise for your own use.

At the mo the generators have 15 possible outcomes, generated at random, but that can change without much hassle at the design end. In the meantime, you can customise the 15 outcomes by just editing a txt file that's bundled with the download that will run as a standalone applicaton on your computer.

Me thinks a mobile phone version of this would be very nice...

Some Ideas and Some Space

2010-01-30T09:07:00.000-08:00

As it's sometimes a little difficult to host things here on the blog, I've set up a free space over at this host where I hope we'll be able to store things like documents and software along with other tools that can be easily downloaded.

I've started with the ongoing document around some of the workshop ideas we've been developing. It's collapsable and expandable and feels much nicer than a linear document.

I'll put a permalink on the sidebar to the page which could develop at some point into a more functionial webspace.

I do like to wrestle with javascript on a Saturday afternoon! But hey, the script I needed was generated by what is fast becoming a favourite tool...and it's a free one! it's FreeMind.

I've also changed the favicon on the pages (the little pic on the browser tab - next to the page name) - there's such a wealth of cool little gadgets, software and tricks out there. Inspiration does seem to lie at ones' fingertips.